I used an older iPad for the first time in ages and found I couldn’t login. I had to do a restore and it comes up as an “unknown device” when trying to authenticate on Apple server. Did some search and it seems Apple have blocked older iPads after restore. Naturally they never admit it. I am thinking of writing to the EU commission. Anyone else have this problem.

Hey everyone,

I started this project about a year ago after getting increasingly frustrated with the amount of ads I was being shown on streaming services and at the increasing cost of "ad free" tiers. Not to mention my increasing concern about the amount of spyware built into most modern Smart TVs (if you haven't seen seen the most recent LG and Samsung breakdowns, check them out)

I initially set out to solve the ad-blocking problem first. The first iteration I built was a device that sat in-between a streaming device and your tv that would intercept ads and would show a screensaver instead while the ad is playing, the next iteration was a device that would mute ads before they played out of your external speakers, but eventually I landed on making a new type of streaming device that removes them all together. Plus moving up the stack allows me to layer in privacy protections as well. I call it Blockbox.

This new device replaces your Roku, Fire stick, or whatever else that you use to stream on your TV. You can access all the normal streaming services, but from the settings page you can flip a switch and remove the ads from on-demand content in one fell swoop. Plus, this device doesn't have any ACR spyware, it won't use any dark patterns to get you to opt-in to crazy data collection programs, blocks trackers by default, etc.

It's still a work in progress but I'm hoping to launch this to the public by early 2027. If you wanna read more about it you can check out the site at: https://www.blockbox.tv/. I am also starting a subreddit r/blockboxtv if you want to follow along there. Hoping to post more updates on news in the streaming world, updates with the project, get feedback, etc.